


camera shy

by hudders-and-hiddles (huddersandhiddles)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: A shameless excuse for some cute shenanigans, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 15:56:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huddersandhiddles/pseuds/hudders-and-hiddles
Summary: “You two are the face of Rose Apothecary, David,” Alexis says in that breezy way that means she thinks he’s being deliberately obtuse. “And putting a face with the name personalizes your brand and helps build an emotional bond that increases customer loyalty.”“Did you choke on a textbook?”Alexis thinks that making videos of David and Patrick talking about how they met is somehow going to help the store. David thinks he'd rather throw up.





	camera shy

**Author's Note:**

> I got an ask over on tumblr that said "What will be the stories they tell others on how they met and first impressions?" And this fic, I suppose, is my answer. Thanks for the idea, anon. And thanks as always to Darcy and LeighAnne for the quick beta. <3

The red light is on.

David shifts in his seat, the well-worn springs in their small, back room sofa creaking beneath him. They’d put it back here for breaks and other more interesting activities. Not for this. He takes a deep breath and blows it out again, trying to temper some of the fluttering in his stomach. The pancakes he’d had for breakfast were probably a mistake.

Another glance and the red light is still there, dim but steady—an unblinking eye. He tries his best not to look at it again.

“Sorry, what— What was the question?”

Behind the camera, Alexis sighs heavily, clearly losing her patience with him. To be fair, it is the third time they’ve tried this. “How did you two meet?”

From the other side of the sofa, Patrick gives him an encouraging smile. Okay. David can do this. He looks back into the inky blackness of the camera lens and opens his mouth to start the story.

The red light glares at him.

He can’t do this. His mouth closes again with a snap.

“Ugh, David!” Alexis presses a button, and the red light finally blinks off.

“I still don’t understand why we’re even doing this.”

“Because we’re building your brand.”

“How?” he asks, throwing a baffled look at Patrick, too. He’s supposed to be the business savvy one here. Can’t he talk her out of this? “How is us making videos about our relationship supposed to help the store?”

Alexis has been their self-titled brand consultant for the better part of a year now. Most of her job has consisted of hanging around the store and helping herself to their products, no matter how many times David has told her that they can’t sell the lip balms after she flattens them out again.

But occasionally she has sprung upon a decent idea. She’d helped them build their online storefront and then created social media accounts for them to help drive traffic to the site. It’s more than doubled their average monthly sales, but David is loath to admit that it seems to be working so well, mostly because Alexis gets annoyingly handsy when she’s smug. There have been far too many nose boops for his taste.

“You two are the face of Rose Apothecary, David,” she says in that breezy way that means she thinks he’s being deliberately obtuse. “And putting a face with the name personalizes your brand and helps build an emotional bond that increases customer loyalty.”

“Did you choke on a textbook?”

She glares at him and then looks to Patrick for help.

He grimaces apologetically. “She is kinda right.”

“Fine,” David says, throwing up his hands because he’s clearly outnumbered. He hates it when they gang up on him about business decisions. “Fine. Let’s get it over with. Press the button thingy.” He tugs on his sweater to straighten it and brushes a hand across his hair.

“Okay,” Alexis says. “Remember, the question is ‘How did you—’”

“I got it. Thanks.”

She fixes him with a stony stare from behind the camera but pushes the button all the same.

The red light goes on, and David starts talking before he has a chance to think any more about what he’s doing. “I went to Ray’s to file my incorporation papers. Patrick helped me with it. And that’s how we met.”

“No, David.” The red light goes off again.

“What? I answered the question. That _is_ how we met.” Patrick laughs, and David turns to scowl at him. “What?!”

“I think the point is to, you know, give people details. To invite them into the story.”

David’s eyebrows rocket toward the ceiling. This is exactly why he hadn’t wanted to do this. The only good part of losing their family fortune had been the ability to step away from the public eye. The last thing he wants now is to step right back into it. “I don’t want to invite random strangers on the internet into the story. It’s our story. It’s not _for_ them.”

Patrick’s smile softens into something sweeter, a gooey, taffied look, and David can feel the warm, sticky pull of it behind his ribs.

“Ew!” Alexis interjects. “I’m sitting right here.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“Actually…” Patrick nods toward the doorway leading back out onto the main floor of the store. “Alexis, I’ve got an idea.”

“I guess I’ll just stay here then?” David calls after them as they disappear around the curtain.

They’d carved out this little space in the back as an impromptu studio when Alexis had come up with this idea. She’d borrowed a decent camera and tripod from somewhere—probably Ray, if David had to guess. Originally, she’d wanted to hire a real crew: professionals with lighting and mics and HD cameras and editing skills. But David knew that she’d have charged them the cost of it, and he certainly wasn’t about to pay someone to produce videos he didn’t want to make in the first place. Agreeing to a more DIY version was the most he was willing to offer on that front.

The bell over the front door rings, and a few seconds later, Patrick pulls back the curtain and leans against the door frame. The bright, mid-afternoon sun beams in around his silhouette, framing him in warmth and light. “I sent Alexis home.”

“Oh? And she just… agreed to that?” David finds that hard to believe: Alexis likes to have her well-manicured hands all over any projects she takes on.

“I may have had to give her a bottle of that new cuticle oil to get her to go.”

That sounds more like it. David pushes himself to his feet. “So we’re done here then?”

“No,” Patrick says, heaving himself out of the doorway. Instead of resuming his seat next to David, however, he steps behind the camera, pointing at David and then the sofa in an indication that he should sit back down. “I told her we could handle this part ourselves.”

David doesn’t sit. He doesn’t sit because he doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to share this part of himself with the world. Because this David Rose isn’t for the world to see. This David Rose is for Patrick and Patrick only. Long, long ago, this David Rose had been out in the world, and when the world had discovered the softness of his belly, it had sunk its claws in deep. He’d learned to protect himself better after that, to toughen his shell so that the world couldn’t get in again. It had been hard work letting Patrick in past that, learning to trust that he wouldn’t reopen all those still-healing scars. But the world at large is a different story. David has no trust in them.

“David.” His name is soft and warm on Patrick’s tongue. Patrick smiles, but David can’t quite return the gesture. “It’s going to be fine,” he says, stepping forward to slide his reassuring hands into the dip of David’s waist. “It’s just something to generate a little interest in the store.”

It’s an argument that reminds David so much of the one Patrick had used to convince him to host their first open mic night that the corner of his mouth curls unwittingly upward. Patrick had been right about that; even though it had been terrifying, it had also been good, both for the store and for their relationship. Maybe he can do this, too.

“You have final say on anything we post, okay? If you don’t like any of it, we don’t have to put up a single video. But let’s at least give it a try.”

He can do this. He trusts Patrick. He can do this. “Okay.”

Patrick gives him a soft, quick kiss and slides into the chair behind the camera. Once David is settled back on the sofa, the red light comes on. For a moment, all he can see is the cold, uncaring blankness of the lens, but when Patrick says his name, he manages to meet his gaze.

“Don’t look at the camera. Look at me.” David swallows down the still-clinging tendrils of his anxiety and nods. “It’s just us here. All you have to do is talk to me.” He can do that. He can definitely do that. “So tell me about the day we met.”

This time when Patrick smiles, David lets himself smile back.

*

“You were wearing blue. Like usual.” Patrick laughs, but it’s a warm, fond sound that eases the last of the tension knotted in David’s belly. “It wasn’t quite as rich as like a cobalt. More like a steel blue.”

“So you’re saying you noticed how I was dressed?”

“Don’t get cocky. I notice how _everyone_ is dressed.”

His grin says he’s cocky about it anyway, and he prompts David to go on. “So I was wearing blue…”

“Steel blue. A button-up with the sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons undone.” Patrick’s grin only gets cockier, and David shakes his head. Talking about it is easier than he had expected, especially with Patrick looking at him like it’s the greatest story he’s ever heard. And when David thinks about it, maybe it is.

He tries to remember as many details as he can. It’s honestly a bit of a jumble because he had been so flustered by his own inability to articulate his business plans—he’d walked Stevie through it about a hundred times, and yet he couldn’t seem to explain it to Patrick. The way Patrick had just grinned at him through it all had only made it worse. He hadn’t been sure whether he was being laughed with or laughed at. In typical David fashion, he’d taken it as an insult, just in case. It was just easier that way.

Easier than admitting that he’d gotten tongue-tied over a cute guy who’d done little more than smile at him.

“You shook my hand,” David says, “and said it was a big deal that I was planning to lease the old general store. And then we started on the paperwork.”

A smug, knowing look settles onto Patrick’s face. “And how did that process work out?”

“As I recall, it went _very_ well.” David smirks at him, refusing to walk into his trap. If he has to tell this story to the world, at the very least he’s leaving out the parts that make him look like an idiot.

“That’s not the way I remember it.”

“Well, it’s not your turn to tell the story, is it?”

“I guess the truth will have to wait then.”

“The _truth_ ,” David says, “is that _I was nervous_. I’d never started a business before! I didn’t know what I was doing! And you were supposed to help me. But you didn’t, did you? Instead you teased me. Relentlessly.”

“And why would I do that?”

“You tell me! You’re the one who just kept _smiling_ at me like that!”

“Oh, so now you’re accusing me of smiling at you, too? That sounds very rude of me.” There’s so much joy and good humor and affection behind Patrick’s grin that it looks like he might just burst with it. God, David loves him.

“You were incredibly rude,” he replies, but the happy twist of his mouth gives him away. “You were so sure of yourself, and I wanted so badly to dislike you.”

Patrick raises his eyebrows at him in challenge. “But?” He’s fishing again, but this time David lets himself be baited.

“But you were also very charming. And very cute. And I just— I really wanted you to like my business. I don’t know why it mattered, I guess, but it did. Maybe… because you were the first person I’d talked to about it who really knew anything about business?” He hadn’t intended to get introspective about it, but Patrick is looking at him with genuine interest now, like this is something he doesn’t already know. It’s not something David has given much thought to before either. “I mean, Alexis thought her high school business class made her an expert, but she’s the _last_ person I wanted advice from. And my dad obviously knows about business, but I didn’t really talk to him about it either. I just wanted— I _needed_ to try to do it on my own, you know?” He meets Patrick’s gaze, and Patrick nods. “I guess I just needed an outside opinion. Someone who wasn’t invested in it in any way. Who wasn’t invested in me. So I called you that afternoon to walk you through my business plan and left you about a thousand messages, which was all a _complete_ disaster, as you well know—probably shouldn’t have gotten high with Stevie before I called. But somehow you pieced it all together anyway, and you told me it was actually a good idea, and I—” David blushes, realizing suddenly that he’s rambling himself into something far too close to honesty. He clears his throat. “You did tell me that the name was pretentious though.”

Patrick smiles at him like he’s some kind of miracle. “I stand by it.”

David tries his hardest not to kiss him.

*

Patrick smoothes down his lapels and the placket of his shirt. David had done a good job of wrinkling them as soon as the red light on the camera had gone off. It couldn’t be helped.

“Ready?” David asks him, now behind the camera, and Patrick gives him a nod. David presses the record button and reads the next question on the scrap of motel printer paper Alexis had left behind. “What was your first impression of me?”

Patrick blushes, a pink wave of warmth washing over his face, but he takes a deep breath and it starts to fade just as quickly. “I, uh— I thought you were funny.”

David narrows his eyes at him, certain from that blush that that wasn’t Patrick’s _first_ impression. “You thought I was funny?”

“I do remember laughing quite a bit, yeah.”

“Because you were laughing _at_ me.”

“Because you were funny.”

“And that’s it?” David asks, his hands thrown wide. “That was your _entire_ first impression of me—that I was _funny_?”

“No, I noticed your clothes, too, for the record. You were _not_ wearing blue. A lot of black actually. But it suited you. It was very…”

“Fashionable?” David offers.

“I was gonna say dramatic.”

David scoffs, and Patrick gestures toward him like _see what I mean?_ Even if he had a point, which he doesn’t, David isn’t going to concede it.

His tone dripping with sarcasm, he says, “Funny _and_ dramatic. I sound like a meretricious TV movie. I guess when you put it that way, it’s so obvious why you wanted to go into business with me.”

Patrick shakes his head, serious now. “I wanted to go into business with you because you had a good idea, and you needed help.” He glances down at his fingers, plucking at the seam of his jeans along his thigh for a few seconds before he manages to add, “And because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” The blush creeps back onto his cheeks. “You were just so…” He looks around the room as if he could find the right word buzzing somewhere in the air around them. Maybe he can because he looks at David again, the corner of his mouth just tilting into the edge of a smile. “Captivating.”

It’s David’s turn to blush. Of all the things he’s ever been called, captivating definitely isn’t one of them.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.” Patrick’s done joking now. The words are simple and bare. “You were like no one I’d ever seen before. The way your hands never stop moving. The way your whole face lights up when you talk. There’s something so… honest about it, David. About you.” David wriggles in his seat, glad that the camera can’t see him now. He still has a hard time with this, being on the receiving end of this kind of straightforward affection. “It’s like underneath all the sarcasm and the nerves, I could still see… you. And I just— I wanted to see more.”

“Is that a sex joke?” David asks because he can’t bear not to. He has to break the tension, to relieve himself of the focus of so much sincerity.

“You know what I meant.” Thankfully, Patrick leaves the earnestness there, letting David hide behind the topic change. “I definitely thought I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you in that way either though. I mean that’s not _why_ I invested in your business, but it’s certainly been a nice bonus.”

“Oh really? And why— why would you want to see more of me _in that way_?” This is much more comfortable ground. David could talk about sex with Patrick all day, even to the world at large. Sex with Patrick is fantastic.

Patrick shakes his head. “Stop fishing for compliments. You already know I thought you were gorgeous.”

“ _They_ don’t know that,” David says, gesturing toward the camera. “Isn’t that the point here? To tell the people out there things they don’t already know.”

Patrick heaves a heavily put-upon sigh before looking straight into the camera lens. “Yes. Let the record show that I, Patrick Brewer, thought that David Rose was _very_ attractive from the first minute I met him.” He turns back to David. “Better?”

“Better.”

*

They decide that the next question should go to Patrick as well, so David stays where he is. With the camera recording again, he asks, “How did our first date go?”

“Well, you didn’t know it was a date,” Patrick says, full of amusement. “So I think that’s a pretty good indication of how things went.”

That’s not at all an indication of how things went, and they both know it. David nudges Patrick’s shin with his foot. “I knew it was a date. Just not _at first_.”

Patrick looks straight into the camera again, shaking his head. “Can you believe he brought his best friend on our first date?”

“Well whose fault is it that I didn’t know it was a date?! My _business partner_ wanted to buy me dinner because it was my birthday. I’ve never been in that situation before! And it’s not like there’s some kind of, I don’t know, dating encyclopedia that I could consult to say, hey, this very weird situation, is it just a friendly thing or is it a date?”

“You thought it was weird?”

He did at the time. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not my turn,” he says. “You’re supposed to be telling this story.”

“I’ll tell more of it after you tell me why it was weird.”

They stare each other down for a few seconds, but ultimately David acquiesces first. “I don’t know. I just—” He squeezes his eyes closed and scrunches up his face, as if he could somehow hold it back. But the words come tumbling out in a rush anyway. “I really wanted it to be a date, but I thought you were straight, and we were just business partners, so I wasn’t supposed to be interested in you like that anyway, so it’s weird to go out with the business partner you can’t stop thinking about even though you aren’t really supposed to be thinking about him at all, for a birthday dinner that isn’t a date even though you want it to be a date.”

When he cracks one eye open again, he finds Patrick biting back a grin. “But it was a date.”

“Yes, I know that _now_ ,” David says, exasperated. “But I didn’t know it was a date when you asked me. And now that I have explained it, can you please talk about said date?”

“Well, like I said, you brought Stevie along. And I realized then that I probably should have been clearer about why I’d asked you to dinner.”

“Because it _was_ a date. Which I couldn’t possibly have known, since you didn’t actually tell me it was a date.”

“Anyway,” Patrick says over David’s continued ribbing, the hint of a grin lingering at the corners of his mouth. “Stevie left eventually, and then it really was a date. Dinner, drinks, all the usual stuff. Some world class mozzarella sticks.”

The memory of how sad and greasy those had been makes David laugh. “Cafe Tropical’s finest offerings.” He can’t believe they’d actually still eaten dinner after that. And dessert, though that had been the best course by far. David had ordered a slice of chocolate cake, while Patrick had gone for a strawberry trifle. His lips had still tasted sweet like the berries when David had kissed him in front of the motel later that night.

Patrick gives him a private little smile, and David wonders if he’s thinking about the same thing.

“You got me a birthday present,” he says to keep from thinking any more about Patrick’s lips.

“I did.”

“And?”

“And you liked it.”

David bites his bottom lip. To say he’d liked it is an understatement. Patrick had tried to undersell it, afraid that David would find it immaterial. That he would be disappointed. And sure, he’d been regularly given gifts over the years that were worth much more money. But never before had someone given him something that meant so much. “I did,” he says, finding that he doesn’t really want to say anything else about it. As much as he’s eased into this whole video thing now, there are some things he’d still like to hold on to just for them. So he changes the subject. “And at the end of the night you drove me home.”

“Of course I did. What, was I just going to make you walk home?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.”

Patrick’s mouth curves into that little frown he gets when David talks about some of the less pleasant parts of his past relationships. David hates seeing that frown on his face—it doesn’t belong there. Patrick’s face is meant for joy. So he says, “And then I kissed you.”

“Yes, you did.” The smile that replaces the frown is brighter than sunshine. “And it was the best end to the best first date I’ve ever had.”

*

Patrick sinks into the cushion on the other half of the sofa, folding a leg under him so that he can turn his back to the arm and lean against it. David glances at the camera, where the red light is on, before turning toward Patrick. “What are you doing?”

“I thought maybe we both should answer this last one.”

“Okay…” David says, with just a hint of uncertainty. He hadn’t looked down the list, so he doesn’t know what the last question actually is. “So should I—” He gestures back and forth between the camera and Patrick. “Am I talking to you or the camera?”

“Still me,” Patrick says, so David mirrors him, folding a leg onto the cushion so he can turn and face Patrick, their knees touching. It feels better like this, not having the camera between them, and David allows himself to relax back against the arm of the sofa.

Patrick smirks at him. “When did you know?”

“Know what?” he asks, all innocent bewilderment, while his stomach does a nervous little flip.

“When did you know you loved me?”

David presses his lips into a tight, thin line. Somehow this isn’t something they’ve talked about before at all. It’s the kind of conversation better reserved for a bit of late-night cuddling, lying in bed, enveloped by the dark. It’s easier, David feels, to say things into the comfortable protection of the darkness. It’s much, much harder to bring them up in the light of the mid-afternoon sun. But Patrick’s face is patient and open, and David finds that as much as he doesn’t want to say these things in the bright light of day, he wants Patrick to know even more.

“August 19th.”

A surprised laugh rumbles up from Patrick’s chest. “I wasn’t expecting an exact date.” The grin on his face says he’s pleased by it though, and David knows he’s made the right choice in telling him. “And what’s so special about August 19th?”

“Nothing really. I just—” David shrugs. There really is nothing special about the day itself. But still, it’s when he knew. “It was fish and chips night at the cafe, and I hate fish and chips night because—”

“Because the smell of grease soaks into your clothes.”

David beams at him. “Exactly.”

“Wait.” Patrick’s eyes narrow. “Are you saying you love me because I care about your clothes?”

His voice is light and teasing, and David rolls his eyes. Now that they’re talking about it though, he does actually want Patrick to understand. “No,” he says. “You— We didn’t talk about it. That night I mean. We didn’t have to. You just… remembered, from something I had said weeks before, that I didn’t like it.” The corner of David’s mouth pulls into a soft smile at the memory. “You said, ‘Where do you want to go for dinner since it’s fish and chips night at the cafe?’ And that’s it. That’s all it was. Just as casual as that. No one’s ever—” He swallows against the sudden tightness in his throat and blinks hard. “No one has ever cared about the things I care about like that—just because I care about them. No one’s worked around all these… idiosyncrasies without question. And I didn’t know—” He looks down at his lap and brushes a hand across his cheek, smearing the tear that’s managed to escape there. Patrick offers him a hand, and he takes it, letting Patrick squeeze comfort into his fingers. “I didn’t know it could be this easy.” He takes a deep breath and looks up again, giving Patrick the slightest of smiles. He can do this. He needs to do this. “You’ve made it easy. Not just to love you but… to feel like— to feel worthy of love. You did that. You… do that. Every day.” He huffs out a shaky chuckle, more at himself than anything, just to relieve some of the anxiety throbbing in his veins. “So yeah. That’s when I knew. That’s the first time I thought, ‘I love him.’”

Patrick raises his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles, like some kind of courtly, Victorian gentleman. It shouldn’t be nearly as endearing as it is.

“What about you?” David asks. “When did you know?”

“Well, I don’t know the date,” Patrick says, and David laughs. “It was definitely earlier than August 19th though.”

“Oh, see, I didn’t realize it was a contest. Am I a bad boyfriend now because I didn’t know sooner?”

“The very worst,” Patrick replies with a tender look that says David’s anything but.

“Go on then. When was it?”

Patrick’s quiet for a moment, and the answer when it comes is quiet, too, like he’s a little afraid David might not like it. “The first time you stayed with me at Ray’s.”

“Mmm, I remember that night,” David says. “You had to be _very_ quiet while I s—”

“No,” Patrick interrupts, blushing bright crimson. “I mean— I mean, yes, we did— But that’s not— No.” He shakes his head and tries again. “You stayed with me at Ray’s, and I didn’t realize until three days later that you had left an entire line of hair and skin care products on the dresser.”

“Okay…?” David doesn’t remember doing that, but it sounds like something he would have done. He’d known that containers of all his usual products had ended up at Ray’s at some point, but he hadn’t realized it was quite that early.

“I walked by them every morning,” Patrick explains. “I saw them when I was getting dressed. I think I even knocked one over at some point and had to stand it back up again. And still it took me _three days_ to realize that they weren’t always there. They weren’t even mine. That’s how much they just… belonged there. They belonged there the way you belonged there.” He gives David the softest smile. “And that’s when I knew I loved you.”

David tugs on the hand that’s still holding his, urging Patrick across the sofa so that he can kiss him. They meet in the middle, the kiss sweet and lingering, and David lets himself melt into it.

“Wait,” he says, pulling back suddenly. “The _first_ time I stayed with you at Ray’s? That was like, maybe two weeks after our first date.”

“Mhmm.”

“You already loved me _two weeks_ after we started dating?”

“No,” Patrick says. “No, I _realized_ I loved you two weeks after we started dating.” His hands come up to brace either side of David’s face, keeping him from turning away from the earnestness of the moment. “David, I loved you the moment we met. I’ve loved you from the very start.”

David surges forward to kiss him because he can’t not be kissing him right now. This beautiful, wonderful, unbelievable man who has apparently loved him since he had handed Patrick a paper number and started rambling aimlessly about the business they now run together. David loves him fiercely, more than he’s ever loved anyone or anything else in his entire life, more than he thought was physically possible.

“I love you,” he whispers the second their lips part again.

Patrick dips his forehead against David’s, his hands tracing down his arms to twine their fingers together. “I love you.” He trails soft, wet kisses across David’s cheek and along his jaw, over his chin and across the bridge of his nose. “I love you,” he says again, nudging the words into David’s skin, kissing them into his forehead and his temples, his eyelids and his earlobes, until David is trembling under the weight of them.

“Patrick,” he breathes, leaning in to taste the words on his lips. They part readily for him, warm and welcome, his tongue slipping in against David’s in tempting little licks that begin to stoke the sparking heat in David’s veins toward a steady burn.

All too soon, Patrick is pulling away, which is the opposite of what he wants. But Patrick’s hands begin to unfasten the buttons down the front of his shirt and David scrambles to pull off his own sweater because maybe Patrick has the right idea after all.

The last button is barely undone, the shirt still hanging loosely on Patrick’s shoulders, before David is lunging across the sofa to press Patrick back into the cushions so that he can get his mouth on all that newly-bared skin, kissing along his collarbones and down his sternum, flicking his tongue across the peak of a nipple, nipping at the faint, coffee-stain birthmark at the crest of his hip. Patrick’s stomach trembles with laughter—he’s ticklish there—and David drags his fingers across the same patch of skin to watch the delightful way the muscles in his abdomen flex and stretch as he wriggles away from the feeling. “Don’t,” Patrick breathes, grabbing at David’s shoulders to guide him back up to where he can kiss him again.

David goes willingly, settling into a straddle across the breadth of Patrick’s hips, enjoying the slight, teasing roll of them beneath his own. Patrick smears open-mouthed kisses down the length of his neck, dipping his tongue into the hollow at the base of David’s throat, and David moans, feeling Patrick’s answering grin against his skin.

“I think—” he says, trying desperately not to lose the train of his thought that quickly, but it’s hard when Patrick is sucking a bruise into the curve of his shoulder. “I think we’re… wearing too many…” Patrick nibbles at the bruise, already deliciously sore, and David gasps. “Clothes. Too many clothes.”

Patrick bites him again, in the same spot but harder, and pulls away with a wicked smirk. “I think you’re right.”

David is up off the sofa in an instant, already unbuttoning his jeans as Patrick rushes to do the same. Shoes, socks, pants, trunks—all of it has to go—and as soon as Patrick has finished wriggling out of his remaining clothes, David is climbing on top of him again. This time when Patrick rolls his hips up, David grinds down to meet him, their cocks dragging together between them. “Fuck,” David groans, and Patrick slides a hand into his hair to pull him down into a messy kiss. He wants to stay like this forever, Patrick holding him here with such easy control, kissing him breathless while they torturously rock against one another. It’s not enough, not nearly enough, but every brush of skin on skin deepens the ache building inside him, until his every nerve is lit up, his body a marquee bearing Patrick’s name.

Patrick breaks away to stretch across the arm of the sofa and grab the bottle of lube they keep in the drawer of the small table beside it. “Give me your hand,” he says, his voice gone gratifyingly throaty with need, and he drizzles a little pool of liquid into David’s palm.

He wraps his hand around Patrick first, eager to touch him, delighting in the way his eyes roll back and his mouth drops open at the feeling, sliding his hand over Patrick’s prick in light, teasing strokes until he’s slick all over and straining up into him. David holds his hand out for more, and it takes Patrick a second to focus enough to pour more lube into his palm. He slicks himself then, ignoring the way Patrick’s hips stutter up looking for more, letting his knuckles just brush against Patrick’s cock as he strokes himself, the barest hint of the contact Patrick so clearly wants.

“David,” Patrick whines, and he finally wraps his hand around them both together, skin slipping over skin, and Patrick’s hands find his hips, squeezing them in encouragement, urging him to move. The rhythm builds, an intensifying push and pull, and Patrick drags him closer, hands roving across his shoulders, his backs, his hips, his ass, squeezing out all the air between them, pulling them as close together as they can possibly be, the roll of their bodies sliding their cocks together relentlessly, in and out of David’s fist, steady like waves. Patrick presses a kiss to David’s chest, right over his heart, and David loves him so vehemently his blood burns with it, searing along his veins, licking like flames under his skin.

He’d never realized it could be like this. Not until Patrick.

“I love you,” he says again, tears shining at the corners of his eyes. “God, I love you so fucking much.” Patrick holds him impossibly tighter, capturing his mouth in a searingly tender kiss, an intoxicating counterpoint to the way he rocks faster into David’s hand. He’s close; David can feel it in the digging press of fingers along his spine, hear it in the shallow rasp of breath against his lips. He smears his mouth across Patrick’s cheek, drags his teeth against the hinge of Patrick’s jaw. “Come for me,” he whispers. “Come for me, Patrick.”

He twists his hand over the head of Patrick’s cock, and Patrick draws in a deep, hissing breath, going tense beneath him. David strokes him again, and again, watching the way the crinkle over his nose deepens with each curl of his hand, moving faster, and finally, finally all the tension pulling at Patrick’s frame snaps, and he comes with a long groan. David watches the pleasure of it ripple across his face, as delighted by it now as he was the first time he got to see it happen, and even though his eyes are still closed, Patrick grins.

“I can feel you watching me,” he says around the heave of his breath, and David blinks bashfully away. But Patrick is quick to reassure him. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.” He cracks open an eye and draws David down for a kiss that leaves him wriggling in Patrick’s lap. “You know you’re not the only one who likes to watch though,” he says, putting a hand on David’s chest to push him away. “Put your hands on my knees.”

David leans back as far as he dares, bracing his hands behind him on Patrick’s knees. It leaves him feeling incredibly exposed. The heavy rise and fall of his chest, the splotches of heat mottling his skin, the jut of his cock standing hard and slick between his legs—there’s no hiding any of it, just as there’s no hiding the way he shivers when Patrick’s bright gaze rakes greedily down his body and back up again. The first time Patrick had ever looked at him like that, David had wanted to hide from the intensity of it. But once he’d grown more used to being looked at that way, he’d learned to love it. He never feels sexier than when Patrick is looking at him the way he is now, all raw and hungry and breathless. His blunt nails drag absently down the lengths of David’s thighs, drawing all that simmering heat back to the surface.

“You’re incredible,” Patrick says, moving to trace a fingertip gently up the length of David’s prick. His hands shake against Patrick’s knees. “Are you okay?” he asks, and David nods. “Is _this_ …” He finally wraps his hand properly around David’s cock. “...okay?” He moves in one long, soft stroke, up and back down again, and David’s stomach aches with the need for more.

“Yes,” he chokes out. “Please.”

“Good.” And finally Patrick starts to move, working up and down in firm, even pulls. “Do you know how gorgeous you are?” he asks, moving faster now. “You’re stunning.” David pumps his hips up to meet Patrick’s hand, watching Patrick watching him. He isn’t going to last long like this; he never does with Patrick watching him this way. “You’re so beautiful, David.” His arms tremble where they’re holding him up, as the tension in his thighs and his belly and his spine pulls tight tight tight. All his focus narrows down to the feeling of Patrick’s hand gliding over his skin, quick and tight, just the way David likes it. He’s close. He’s so, so close.

“Please,” David pleads again, and Patrick strokes him faster still, David fucking up into his fist as much as he can at this angle.

“Yes,” Patrick says. “Yes. God. You’re so fucking perfect.”

And with a heavy, shuddering breath, David comes hard, stars popping against the inky dark behind his eyelids.

He barely manages to keep holding himself up, arms shaking with the effort, and Patrick pulls him up into a kiss, messy and panting and satisfied. David collapses into him as he catches his breath, Patrick’s hands gently flitting over his shoulders and his jaw and up into his hair, smoothing along the curves of his chest and arms, leaving his skin sticky-slick in their wake, before settling across his lower back and holding him close. “I love you,” he breathes into the arch of David’s neck, and David buries his smile in Patrick’s shoulder.

*

David is reaching for his sweater when he sees it and freezes.

The red light is on.

“Oh my god!”

“What’s the matter?” Patrick asks, tucking in the tails of his shirt. “Did your sweater get wrinkled again? Because I’ve still got a spare in the...” He finally follows David’s petrified gaze and realizes the problem. “Oh.” He reaches over and hits the button. The red light goes off.

David stares at the camera, horrified, for several more seconds before he can finish picking up and putting on his sweater. “Was that—” He opens and closes his mouth twice more without managing the rest of the question.

“Yeah,” Patrick answers anyway. “Yes. I think so.”

David claps his hands over his face, shaking his head. Oh god, how had they forgotten they were recording that? “So should we…”

Patrick pulls open the little door on the side of the camera and removes the memory card, slipping it carefully into his pocket. “We’ll just… tell Alexis she must have forgotten to put a card in the camera, and we can reshoot it tomorrow.” He blushes. “I mean, without the… you know…”

“Yeah, that part was understood.”

David finally manages to turn and meet Patrick’s gaze, and after one horrified moment, they both dissolve into hysterical laughter.

“How did we not—”

“I can’t believe we—”

“What if we hadn’t—”

“Oh god!”

They laugh until David’s ribs ache with it, his embarrassment rattling out with each breath. When they finally settle into the quiet again, Patrick wraps his arms around David’s back and drags him into a joyous kiss. “You know,” he says, a mischievous glint in his eye, “if we’re going to have to film everything again tomorrow…” He nods back toward the camera. “...maybe we should take that home tonight and practice.”

David’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “And by practice you mean…”

Patrick smiles at him, the very picture of innocence. “Well we are going to have to speak on camera some more.”

“Mhmm.”

“And you did seem awfully reluctant about that at first.”

“Mhmm.”

“So we should probably practice our oral skills.”

“Oh my god!” David shakes his head, but he laughs all the same.

“What? I meant speaking!” Patrick says, completely failing to hide his smile. “What else could I have possibly meant by that, David?”

“You’re incorrigible.”

Patrick leans in to kiss him again. “I learned from the best.”

  

  

  

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as [wild-aloof-rebel](http://wild-aloof-rebel.tumblr.com) (my Schitt's Creek blog) or [hudders-and-hiddles](http://hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com) (my main).


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